Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Linoge Logic

Linoge is one of my most virulent critics, but he happens to be a guy I have a lot of respect for. I like his unwavering belief in his position and the certainty with which he describes it, qualities he shares with a number of other pro-gun bloggers I've had the pleasure of knowing.

His site, Walls of the City is a wonderful example of a pro-gun blog. The recent post entitled Graphics Matter, contains this chart, which might be better viewed on his site, I'm not sure if the magnifying function will work over here. The amount of work that went into this leaves me in awe.

After describing the various elements that went into this work, Linoge said this.

I know that the facts are the only things that matter, again, unlike the anti-rights advocates, and anything that can give us a better look at those facts is something we should pursue.

Facts, that's what we need. Who could argue with that? Certainly not I.

I pointed out to Linoge that the Brady Background Checks law and the Assault Weapons Ban, which he's marked on the top line called, Firearms Related Deaths, must be responsible for the decline which was quite drastic after those two events.

To support the claim of "no proof" he's kindly linked to two pro-gun sites. This is where I'm afraid the passion of the pro-gun argument blinds them to the obvious facts, facts which they themselves point out. For this there's "no proof," because obviously there are a number of other factors involved. This is where common sense and logic come in, attributes which are sometimes lost in the pursuit of "facts" and "proof."

Another idea I questioned is the oft-repeated statement that the number of guns is increasing while the number of violent incidents is decreasing. The green and blue lines, I pointed out, which represent total population and total guns look more or less parallel.

Not so, says Linoge, and to show that he added that last line showing total number of guns per 10,000 people, which clearly indicates an increase. It still seems minor to me, far different from what I've been told many times.

The best thing about this chart for me is, it refutes all those claims I've heard that after the Brady laws and the AWB, gun deaths increased. Linoge has clearly shown that that's just not true. The only question is, although as he points out, there's no proof, did those two laws help decrease the violence or not. To me the answer is clearly "yes."

What's your opinion? Is there a place for common sense and logic to work hand in hand with facts and proof? Is it fair for the pro-gun crowd to keep claiming exclusive ownership of the facts, when in fact they themselves are doing some interpreting? Do you think the Brady law and the AWB had nothing to do with the decline?

The following laws were evaluated: bans on specified firearms or ammunition, restrictions on firearm acquisition, waiting periods for firearm acquisition, firearm registration and licensing of firearm owners, "shall issue" concealed weapon carry laws, child access prevention laws, zero tolerance laws for firearms in schools, and combinations of firearms laws. The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.

If those laws had been responsible for the dramatic reduction of violent crime in the mid 1990s those researchers should have been able to conclude something stronger than "The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes."

I pointed out to Linoge that the Brady Background Checks law and the Assault Weapons Ban, which he's marked on the top line called, Firearms Related Deaths, must be responsible for the decline which was quite drastic after those two events.

Really? And your evidence for this assertion comes from . . . where? The pretty lines on the graph, and nothing else, correct?

You're confusing correlation with causation. Check the data - the decline began before those laws went into effect.

My information comes from the Clinton-administration directed National Academies of Science meta-study published in 2004 as Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. It was the second such done in the U.S., after the Carter-administration study published in 1982 as Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America.

Try this from the Executive Summary, p. 49-50:

None of the existing data sources, by itself or in combination with others, provides comprehensive, timely, and accurate data needed to answer many important questions pertaining to the role of firearms in violent events. Even some of the most basic descriptive questions cannot be answered with existing data. For example, the existing data do not reveal information pertinent to answering the following questions:

1. Where do youth who shoot themselves or others obtain their guns? 2.In what proportion of intimate-partner homicides committed with a gun does the offender also take his or her own life or the lives of the victim’s children or protectors?3. Did the number of people shot with assault weapons change after the passage of the 1994 ban on assault weapons? 4. What are the most common circumstances leading to unintentional firearm-related deaths? Are particular types or makes and models of firearms overrepresented in unintentional firearm-related deaths? 5. What proportion of suicide or homicide victims were under the care of a mental health professional? What proportion were intoxicated with alcohol or illicit drugs at the time of death? How do these proportions compare with those for suicides committed by other means?

Let me translate that for you: They can't prove what you're asserting. If they could, they would, BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR EXACTLY THAT.

And the Brady background check? From page 94:

Ludwig and Cook (2000) compared firearm homicide and suicide rates and the proportion of homicides and suicides resulting from firearms in the 32 states affected by Brady act requirements (the treatment group) compared with the 19 states and the District of Columbia (the control group) that had equivalent legislation already in place. Ludwig and Cook (2000) found no significant differences in homicide and suicide rates between the treatment and control groups, although they did find a reduction in gun suicides among persons age 55 and older in the treatment states. This reduction was greater in the treatment states that had instituted both waiting periods and background checks relative to treatment states that only changed background check requirements. The authors suggest that the effectiveness of the Brady act in reducing homicides and most suicides was undermined by prohibited purchasers shifting from the primary market to the largely unregulated secondary market.

Really, you should actually study this stuff before pontificating on it.

Aztec already hit it, but in order for you to claim that the Brady Law, or misnamed "assault weapons ban" had any effect, you would have to surmise that it's effect was retroactive, as the decline in crime rates was already well underway before either of them was enacted.

You point to something that patently disproves your point as "evidence" of it.

Thanks guys for all the comments. Several of you pointed out that the decline had already begun before those laws. Isn't it possible that the start of the decline would have reversed itself and turned out to be nothing more than a fluctuation had it not been for the Brady law and the AWB? Wouldn't the million and a half people prevented from buying guns by the Brady Background check have had a negative impact on the stats?

Bob said, "I would also like to say that I'm disappointed in your lack of commenting at my site.

I thought you wanted to talk about many different subjects but you rarely leave a comment on any post.

What's up with that?"

You know what it is, Bob, every once in a while I need to step back and let my skin thicken up again. Some of your friends and you yourself wear me out with the name calling and personal attacks. Over here I can control the worst of it, but in your backyard it seems you guys think anything is fair because I represent the "enemy."

I see, because you get your 'wittle feelings' hurt every so often you are reluctant to discuss things were you don't control the comment moderation.

I'm sorry that the big kids don't always play nice, but sometimes your words hurt other people. Like when you tell us and our friends, family and fellow gun owners we are responsible for rapes and murders.

Isn't it possible that the start of the decline would have reversed itself and turned out to be nothing more than a fluctuation had it not been for the Brady law and the AWB? Wouldn't the million and a half people prevented from buying guns by the Brady Background check have had a negative impact on the stats?

Couple of things wrong with your statement. If we speculate that the numbers would have gone up (i.e. just a fluctuation) couldn't we also speculate that the numbers were about to plummet to zero? There is no data to support either theory, so it is meaningless. We could all make up speculation all day and still be at the same point.

Next, the 1.5 million denials is only the number of times someone was denied by the NICS system (which includes false positives you are so fond of when it comes to DGUs). It does not mean 1.5 million criminals didn't get a gun. If we go off of how many prosecutions resulted from the Brady Background check, we could surmise that less than 200 criminals didn't get guns over the course of 15 years.

The fact that something cannot be proven does not necessarily mean it's untrue. That's where common sense and logic and honesty come in. I think sometimes you guys lack those qualities due to your pre-conceived opinions about guns. Yet, when it serves your purposes, you do extrapolate and estimate using these same qualities. Isn't that what Kleck did to come up with the fantastic 2.5 million?

The fact that something cannot be proven does not necessarily mean it's untrue. That's where common sense and logic and honesty come in. I think sometimes you guys lack those qualities due to your pre-conceived opinions about guns. Yet, when it serves your purposes, you do extrapolate and estimate using these same qualities. Isn't that what Kleck did to come up with the fantastic 2.5 million?

A tu quoque argument is the best you can come up with?

Mike, your side (and you in person in this case) makes bald assertions - "the Brady Background Checks and Assault Weapons Ban . . . MUST BE RESPONSIBLE . . ."; Concealed-carry legislation will lead to Wild-West shootouts and blood in the streets; More guns = more gun crime; etc., etc. etc. - And we prove you WRONG. Research done specifically to determine the efficacy of "gun control" laws cannot find any such connection. Concealed-carry laws DO NOT result in "Wild-West shootouts" - crime actually goes down. More guns are added to the population, and both gun crime and gun accidents GO DOWN.

But "common sense" insists otherwise! We must ignore the data!

The WORST thing that can be said about CCW passage is that it might NOT be responsible for the corresponding DECREASE in violent crime that tends to occur, yet every time "shall-issue" concealed-carry legislation is introduced, "common sense" advocates insist it will result in "more guns on the streets" and "blood in the streets."

Common sense is apparently not that common. Neither is logic and honesty. (Check a mirror.)

Why do you bring up Kleck's 2.5 million DGU stat? Why do you ignore the several other studies that estimate defensive gun use? Personally, I think Kleck's errs on the high side, but the LOWEST I've ever seen came from the NCVS at 108,000 annually - 295 a day. How many DGUs represents "enough" for you?

There has been a third study done examining all the research available to date on the efficacy of "gun control" legislation. That one was done in the UK by Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood. His conclusion was much the same as that of the prime researchers in the Carter Administration study. Here's what Inspector Greenwood had to say about the subject:

At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows. Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls have had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals, or in any way reduced crime.

Of course the Inspector was ignored. The facts don't match up with the "common sense" of the members of Parliament. Or our legislatirs. Or, Diety Forbid, gun control advocates.

I admit, "must" isn't exactly the right word. How about, "could?" Or, "should" or "probably is," would they work better?

The point is, since those laws did come into effect when they did, it's not possible to know what would have happened if they hadn't. This is where interpretation of the data comes in.

Mike, check this graphic out and pay careful attention to the dates. Explain to me, using the same logic you use to attribute the decline in violent crime to the Brady background check and the Assault Weapon "Ban" why the passage of "shall-issue" concealed-carry legislation couldn't be, shouldn't be, or probably wasn't responsible for that decline.

I submit that you cannot, except by saying the equivalent of "Nuh-uh!" You're not "interpreting the data," you're slapping your personal template over top of it, ignoring anything that doesn't fit.

Here are the facts: Studies have been done attempting to link gun laws to changes in the level of firearm-involved crime. They have always been unable to do so. While "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," you'd think if the link was actually there, someone would have incontrovertibly found it.

In fact, the data gathered tends - as Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood pointed out - to indicate an inverse relationship. More restrictive gun laws seem to result over time in greater violent crime. This goes against "common sense," but there it is. And there it remains, denied.

Since I'm pretty sure you don't spend much time on my blog, I'll quote especially for you from the conclusion of the first meta-study of gun control law research done in this county at the behest of the Carter Administration - Wright, Rossi & Daley's Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America.

The progressive's indictment of American firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior authors of this study once shared. This indictment includes the following particulars: (1) Guns are involved in an astonishing number of crimes in this country. (2) In other countries with stricter firearms laws and fewer guns in private hands, gun crime is rare. (3) Most of the firearms involved in crime are cheap Saturday Night Specials, for which no legitimate use or need exists. (4) Many families acquire such a gun because they feel the need to protect themselves; eventually they end up shooting one another. (5) If there were fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime. (6) Most of the public also believes this and has favored stricter gun control laws for as long as anyone has asked the question. (7) Only the gun lobby prevents us from embarking on the road to a safer and more civilized society.

The more deeply we have explored the empirical implications of this indictment, the less plausible it has become. We wonder, first, given the number of firearms presently available in the United States, whether the time to "do something" about them has not long since passed. If we take the highest plausible value for the total number of gun incidents in any given year - 1,000,000 - and the lowest plausible value for the total number of firearms now in private hands - 100,000,000 - we see rather quickly that the guns now owned exceed the annual incident count by a factor of at least 100. This means that the existing stock is adequate to supply all conceivable criminal purposes for at least the entire next century, even if the worldwide manufacture of new guns were halted today and if each presently owned firearm were used criminally once and only once. Short of an outright house-to-house search and seizure mission, just how are we going to achieve some significant reduction in the number of firearms available?

(Bold emphasis is mine.) There's more to the conclusion, but that's enough for the point I wanted to make.